finale
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Subaru contemplates on the meaning of "understanding".


**Fandom: X  
Title: finale.  
Rating: G  
Description: Subaru contemplates on the meaning of "understanding****".  
**

**Disclaimer: Tokyo Babylon and X belong to Clamp-sama.**

**finale.  
by miyamoto yui  
**

You may have heard the same old thing, "You just don't understand. Mine is a situation that no one can possibly comprehend."  
I too have found myself here, in this place where the curtains are closed and I am constrained on a bed with a statue of a beautiful woman praying in one corner of my room. She is adorned in alabaster and her breakable face wants to crack and pull a miracle with tears that appear out of nowhere.  
I am chained to this bed and I am too horrified to even cry. You may think I am demented, but all I can say to you is that this is the fruit of the love that I protect so much inside of me. Through this punishment, is this the only way I stimulate myself to live?

Is there no one who hears my cries when I shout out all the things that I cannot take from the world? But to the listeners, it is nothing but a whisper, if at all audible. Why…why is there such hate in the world? Why is there such love? Why do I abhor my own body when it is created by other's hands who are transcendent and not my own?

Have I really carved a life for myself, if this is what is called destiny?

You cannot see what I see because you are not me. I cannot hear what you hear because I am not you. Yet, why do we cross paths when the roads seemed so desiccated and windy?

I clench my hands in fists and I cannot find myself shedding a tear. There are those who weep so openly with crocodile tears, but they cannot feel anything but envy in between all their bones. Why is it that when you are the most emotional, when you feel everything in a single breath, a single heartbeat, a single word that you are the one that cannot show any feelings at all? Is it because they are all clashing at the same time? Is it because you cannot pinpoint them into one thought or name?

Yet, we are all called human.

Even those that shed blood that isn't their own, a matter of self-preservation. I read once in a story that everyone kills everyone else, even though there is no evidence of the blood. But there it is splattered invisibly on a person's hands.  
For every decision you make, you decide whether or not a person's dream or life will persevere in its limitless struggle to make its presence known in the universe. It is like the dying of stars. Just because there are many and they have lived for quite a while, that doesn't mean that they are insignificant and unheard.

Each life that blooms is one that is subject to happiness and suffering.

Even the unborn are not left untouched by these salient rules. In the end (or depending on your perspective, the beginning), they are the ones that will never know the joy and cruelty of what it means to live.

We are privileged and yet we are inclined to deprive someone else of this right, both unconsciously and deliberately.

My fists are covered with blood because my fingernails have dug into my palms. They stain the white sheets.

Why am I here? Where did I go? Where do I come from?

I lift up my head and there is nothing but darkness. Through the curtains, I can make out an illumination. The moonlight shines down in a small glimpse of that hope that I know I should not ride on. Is the moon bleeding today? Is it red? Is it white? Is it yellow?

While trying to catch a glimpse of the moon, time seems to pass so slowly as I stay here waiting for a sign. A sign of what? Something to happen? Maybe that is true. Or, instead, let's say that I am put here, forced to evaluate all that's passed and passing through me.

You may try your best to live and survive in this self-destructive world, but you have a fear that you are only mortal. Even though you are capable of extraordinary things, there is the voice of logic that enters your head to tell you that you can die.  
And no matter how "moral" you try to act, there are evil thoughts, or rather, things that are considered to be less than holy. It is your own choice to act accordingly: towards yourself, the situation, your principles, or the rules of the world.

When you have reached a mutual compromise among the separate entities that make up your being (the mind, the heart, and the soul), it is now up to the world to throw its trials and tribulations down your throat. Down to the point that you want to throw it all back up.  
You want to keep your life simple. You want to live until the next moment, to be able to breathe, eat, love, and passionately carry on with your beliefs, trying not step on anyone or make them angry.

But, in a way, isn't this the same as fear?

If you make everyone happy, you make yourself unhappy. The never-ending question: Selfishness or selflessness?

You would normally think that the line is so distinct, clear as the glass of water you hold in your hand and see through it. But is that the truth? Is it righteousness to give yourself as a sacrifice for everyone? Is it a sin to live according to your wants and needs?

No. There is no answer. Only a silence of indecision ensues.  
It is neither right nor wrong in the limitations that the world has given to its human subjects. Or rather, the regulations humans have given to themselves in order to not always watch each other earnestly when things are "not fair".

The fear that things will turn out the way you want them and you can't handle it.

The fear that things will not turn out the way you want them and you have to deal with it.

Fear.  
You cannot escape making someone unhappy, yourself or the affected party. But without conflict, growth has not been spurned. There is nothing to be learned if everything must be complacent and compliant to a system that you did not make by yourself.

And even when you can surpass all this…  
…what are you faced with next?

The variables in a science experiment: Unpredictability or the predictability of a person's (or people's) actions.

There are people that want to help you and there are people who want to make you stray from the path you've chosen to live and believe in. Everyone has their own reasons, but I cannot understand why is that when I have tried to live my life to the fullest, there is someone whose kindness I wholeheartedly believed in, or the respect that I gave them for being a human being, is nothing but an illusion. That they would thoroughly love to see me writhe in my own pain because they enjoy the power of making another person truly unhappy since they cannot gain their own sense of peacefulness? They want to compete with you out of jealousy for the things that they cannot change about themselves, so they try to make it out that there is something wrong with _you_?

They complicate my life and yet I cannot blame them because it is my choice?

I was just born here.  
I just wanted to look for answers because no one else seems to want to stop the arrangement that we humans have given to ourselves. No one wants to fight to see beyond the blindfolds we've been given.

When there is a problem, what do I do? Do I take action or do I ignore it?

When there is a homeless person, you thank yourself that you are not in their position. There are even people that pray for their graces when faced with the circumstance before them when they didn't thank kami-sama before.  
Or, you think to yourself about what to do. How can you help? But with all the things in the world, it is overwhelming because you are only one person wanting to reach through the barriers.

And yet, you can also be cold, so overwhelmed with sadness but unable to do anything. If you give money, will they use it with the good intention you gave the money with?  
Then, there is yet the other position of looking away because it is not your problem. They got themselves into that mess, so why should you care for someone that does not wish or cannot take care of themselves?

And yet, we still all call ourselves humans.

Even when we can look at another person in the eye and wish them well, in our hearts, we are burning inside to ruin them. Even when we can embrace another being with our hands, we can love them so much with that there eventually be a time when we're unable to do anything, having already done all we could.

We are hopeless, perplexing creatures.

My eyes sting from dryness. My body aches from overuse. My heart is deadening and pushing onto itself, collapsing within its silent burdens.

I don't want to understand anymore. I don't want to think about anything anymore.

Can't I just runaway? I didn't do it. It isn't my fault. I'm just trying to help.

How come I'm trying my hardest and this is all it amounts to? How come I'm trying to change myself and the world around me and this is what I have to show for it?  
The more I try to delve into my heart and soul, the more I feel removed from the many wandering beings of this world that I live in. The more I see that I try to crack and want to know another person, the more I break myself and them along with this new perspective?

I know I've taken a task that shouldn't be mine alone. Maybe I've made myself a martyr on this cross of a bed. Sometimes I think I'm all right with it and at other times, I am not.

Yet, I want to feel them all.

All these feelings and all these people who will never remember me.  
People are selfish this way. Maybe, someday, I too will think of nothing but myself or someone else completely, not remembering the other people around me.

I just wanted to reach out to everyone to tell that there is someone who cares. When I thought no one cared, there was my sister. But of course, there are things we will never experience together. There are things we don't want the other to know.

And from this pain, I was able to build this compassion and empathy towards others who think "I am alone with all of my suffering". I want to see what they see. I want to feel what they feel. Even if I am wrong. Even if I am right. These things don't mean anything.

Life does not mean anything at all when no one has known that you have lived. For I believe that everyone has a purpose, as small or as large as it may be.

I am not a god. I am only one among many whom a divinity or devil privileged with the powers that have been adorned to me in their cruelty or mercy.

I am only an ordinary person. I bleed like everyone else. I smile and hurt like everyone on this planet.  
But am I wrong to go beyond that? Am I overstepping my bounds to become more than human? Or will I become more inhuman in nature, realizing that I can't do anything and being unable to help everyone around me? My soul, heart, and mind can only take so much until it is shattered.

I am a coward. And I am also brave.

I am naive and I am analytical.

The only thing I wanted to do was to show that they are not alone. I didn't want to be alone and so I came with the pretense of "helping them". I know that that is selfishness to its maximum, so will I be judged according to that scale? I also wanted someone to help me, to love me, to teach me about life.

Since someone could not do that for me, I wanted to provide this illusion for other people.

And yet, is this the real me? Am I as kind as I pour myself out to be?

At sixteen years of age, even when I awoke from this dream with tears in my eyes, I stared up at the ceiling. I looked over at the open balcony door and my heart began to sink upon itself. A flood of sakura fluttered on the floor when the wind blew in.  
I wanted to reach out to him, but I knew that it would mean nothing.

I needed to do it myself.  
All by myself.

Even now, at age twenty-five, as I look at my reflection with these mismatched eyes, I touch the glass, looking at my own reflection. Your dying words keep repeating,

_"__You are kind, Subaru.__"_

And I know that deep down inside, I have always wanted to tell you,

"I am not. That's only how you want to see me…  
…because that is how I've presented myself to be."

Have I lied to myself all my life?  
No, I cannot think like that.

I can only live with what I believe in, whatever that may be.

She told me, _"__It is hard to go beyond what you cannot see, but can feel with all of your heart, Subaru.__"_

I know I am only human. I know I've tried to make myself beyond and below that, dissociating with this race when I feel like it and reinstating myself when it's convenient. I am guilty of this crime.

And yet, this is who I am. In a small way, I am proud of myself for being this way.

Because I was able to live to write this to you, Kamui.  
To tell you that I care for you and love you.

To tell you that you aren't alone.  
Even if you won't understand what I've done or will do…

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author****'****s Note:** I wrote this with the intention of picking Elric Edward, Sakuma Ryuichi, or Sumeragi Subaru. And I chose Subaru when I wrote into page 5. Why? Because I know this is the side of myself that is always in turmoil and the part of Subaru that I believe exists, which is the kindness that made me fall so in love with him. Also, I know that the message I am trying to give will be best sent through this angel messenger.

This is dedicated to:  
Mali-chan - for always keeping me in check as a person and writer.  
Winnie the pooh - for always making re-evaluate TB and X while deepening my love for both of them.  
Kamitra-san - for always giving me thought-provoking pieces from your blog, making me feel like I'm not alone in the world with my frenzied way of thinking.

And, as always, thank you Rei-chan for being my beta and all your encouragement.

Love,  
Yui  
**  
Wednesday, August 04, 2004**


End file.
